


The Future is Female

by nontrivialproof



Series: Veep is Dead, Let's Make It Gay [1]
Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, Fix-It, Lesbian Amy Brookheimer, Lesbian Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22252414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nontrivialproof/pseuds/nontrivialproof
Summary: There's this thing that Amy knows.
Relationships: Amy Brookheimer & Dan Egan, Amy Brookheimer/Selina Meyer, mentions of
Series: Veep is Dead, Let's Make It Gay [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601902
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	The Future is Female

**Author's Note:**

> My experience watching season six was just like, *John Mulaney voice* "I think Amy Brookheimer's a lesbian."
> 
> This is rated M for one barely-explicit masturbation scene.
> 
> Warnings for: brief mention of domestic violence, affectionate use of the d-slur, general Veep unpleasantness.

_What's it like to brag about raking in dollars,  
And getting bitches and models?  
And it's all good if you're bad,  
And it's okay if you're mad?_

_[...]_

_I'm so sick of running as fast I can,  
Wondering I'd get there quicker if I was a man.  
And I'm so sick of them coming at me again,  
'Cause if I was a man,  
Then I'd be the man._

—Taylor Swift, "The Man"

\--

Amy is somewhat relieved when Buddy gives up on coming and rolls off of her to sleep, turning his back to her and immaturely grabbing at the covers. Amy still hasn’t quite gotten used to sharing a bed with another person. Buddy is hot, takes up space, and makes her leave the room to take middle-of-the-night phone calls. Amy is fairly sure that there’s supposed to be some trade-off, that he’s supposed to bring her comfort or happiness or some other bullshit thing that she can use to justify the intrusion. But as it is, she feels increasingly annoyed by his presence during the day, and at night, navigating the halls of his house, increasingly like an animal pacing the boundaries of its cage. Lying in bed, there’s an itch under her skin, an urge to throw off the blankets, jump out of bed, and run out into the street.

Amy lies still, clenches her fist, stares at the popcorn-textured ceiling. She reminds herself that if Buddy wins the election, she may be here for the rest of her life.

And that would be her choice. Buddy’s charm — the least D.C. politician she’s ever met, who somehow still has D.C. ambition — may have worn off quickly, but it’s damn fun to run a campaign that actually has a chance to win for once, and Amy isn’t dumb enough to think that she can stay single forever. The proposal is a compelling narrative for the campaign, but being married to a governor, a rising star in politics who might make a presidential bid someday, is a compelling narrative for the rest of Amy’s life.

And yes. It will be an unhappy marriage. Amy knows this. If Buddy hasn’t figured that out yet, then he’s so dumb that Amy may as well give up on his campaign and fly home. She can’t give him what he wants anymore than he can do the same for her, but maybe they can give each other what they need: a body standing tall in the back of press conferences, smiling wide in the photos of newspaper puff pieces.

Amy has no illusions about what Buddy actually wants. As far as she can figure, he wants the same thing most men want. Sure, she’s exactly what they’d _say_ they want. She’s smart and she’s funny, and she’s got a great career that pays the bills, and since most men don’t have that much restraint when it comes to what they’ll say, she’s also a fucking blonde with a pretty face and a tight ass. But in reality, the career’s not enough unless she puts it on hold to have two blonde babies, and the body’s not enough unless she recovers immediately and keeps her vag tight, and it’s fine that she’s smart as long as she lets him be smarter. She’s the campaign manager, and he’s the candidate, and somehow he thinks that that means he’s in charge.

And Amy wants — Amy wants a career. Always has. In high school and at Penn, she dreamed about doing exactly what she’s doing now: running campaigns and managing D.C.’s most powerful. She had never wanted to run herself, just get the right people to the top and keep them there. Be the guy behind the guys.

(She had thought that she was aiming for a career that came with all of the power and none of the posing, but she was naïve. What you look like, what your life looks like, matters, even behind the curtains.)

The work has always come first. At Penn, Amy had fooled around with frat guys and PoliSci bros. They were fun until they got misogynistic or clingy, whichever came first. By senior year, she’d sworn off dating, said she needed to study harder. She tried again after she moved to D.C., with other interns and up-and-comers like herself, men who didn’t mind the way she checked her phone during and never stayed over.

At some point, she learned how to have sex comfortably, how to go through the motions while her mind was elsewhere, zoned out and still thinking about the work.

When Selina hired her, she was somewhat relieved the say that she was too busy to date. Somehow, even dating Ed for over a year, this still felt true.

Amy wants her career desperately, more than anything. For so long, she had eschewed and neglected relationships to prioritize it. Now it looks like it’s going to be the reason she gets married.

Amy waits until Buddy’s breathing has evened out and his gentle snoring has begun to creep her hand beneath the covers and under her waistband. Amy is good at coming with nothing but mental stimuli. She used to let her mind wander to dark hair and angry yells and smooth hands slammed on polished desks, but now she usually thinks of nothing. They are the only moments of the day she lets her mind blank out. Amy comes silently and efficiently. No jerky movements or theatrical moans. Just a sharp intake of breath, a roll of her hips, and a clench through her whole body.

Amy tries not to let her mind flip back to Buddy or work as she falls asleep.

\--

Amy stands placidly at Buddy’s apology press conference, hands folded in front of her, her mouth forced into a smile.

It is a strange position to be in, because she is looking at the audience, and they are looking at her, and together they are sharing a secret. Buddy is apologizing, thinks it is fucking landing, and they all know, perhaps better than him, that he doesn’t mean it. Buddy thinks that they are watching him, and Amy knows that they are staring at her, scrutinizing her face for signs that she does not forgive him. She wishes she could tell them that no, she doesn’t forgive him for sinking the campaign, but that’s all there was to forgive. It’s embarrassing, having them think that she let this overgrown-boyscout/wannabe-cowboy break her heart.

But they think this is real. They understand that it’s broken, but not that it was never really whole. In their heads, everything is bigger and worse. There are women he did more than expose himself to, a never-ending string of imagined interns. In their heads, the drinking is more intense. In their heads, maybe he hits her. In their heads, she loved him.

It’s what she imagines, when she sees one of these stories.

\--

There’s this thing that Amy knows.

She knows it the way you know the details of a dream you’re just waking up from. But the truth of it, the crystal-clear knowledge with all of the details in high definition, has been getting nearer and nearer like an object in her rearview mirror for years. She glances at it periodically, but it has always been distant, and she has always ignored the warning decal.

But suddenly she’s running off of the stage in an events center in Nevada, and shoving open a door with both arms, and gasping cold air into her lungs in a dark parking lot, and she glances at the mirror to give it a cursory check, and fuck, it’s right there outside the window, by her shoulder, and it’s coming closer, so she can either let it hit her or swerve to avoid it, but either way she’s being knocked off the fucking road.

The knowledge is this. It doesn’t matter what men want from Amy when she will never want any of them.

So she’s tried it. So she’s been the cool college girl up for anything, and the casual fling with a coworker, and the hard-to-get, disinterested girlfriend, and the loyal woman standing by her man.

She was almost his wife.

But now he’s not running, and she’s free, and she would rather be chief of staff to the fucking Veep again than ever stand back on that stage.

Amy gets a Lyft to a cheap motel and collapses on the smooth, floral-print quilt pulled across the bed. She blocks Buddy’s number when declining his calls gets tedious, and she books the first flight out she can. Amy needs an interim job and a woman willing to eat her out, and she’s pretty sure than both of those things can be found in New York.

\--

The Meyer Fund is a hot, possibly-criminal mess, but it’s a mess Amy is comfortable languishing in until she can find another candidate. One of these days, Amy is going to actually win a campaign.

As for the second part of her mission, Amy spends ten minutes swiping mostly-left on a dating app before realizing that none of the other profile bios sound like resumes and that she hates this, actually. She thinks briefly about going to a bar after she leaves work, but the thought of getting dressed up to do it and trying to make friendly conversation with the bartender even as everybody who looks at her knows why she’s there is so mortifying that instead she just works through her whole Saturday evening.

Unable to think of a better option, Amy catches Marjorie at the end of a day. Marjorie stands stock still, hands clasped in front of her, and awkwardly, Amy does her best to smile. “Hey,” she says, “so I know this is presumptuous, but —“

Marjorie cuts her off with a slight wave of her hand. “Catherine and I are very happy.”

Amy’s eyes widen, and she takes a step back. “That is… _not_ what I meant. I —“

Marjorie leans forward slightly and nods. “I know. I was making a joke.”

Amy heaves a sigh and releases some of the tension in her posture, does her best to grind out the words. “Okay. Well. I was actually going to ask if you… had any… friends. In the city. That you would set me up with.” It sounds extra-bad coming out of her mouth, a feeling multiplied when Marjorie responds:

“We don’t all know each other.”

Amy nods, tensing again. “Right. Obviously. I don’t know why —“

Marjorie gives her a thin smile. “I was joking again. I’ll give you some numbers.”

Amy stares at her silently for a moment before she says in a strained voice, “So you tell jokes now. This is a skill that you’ve developed.”

“May I say something?” Marjorie asks.

Amy shrugs helplessly. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Your babydyke phase is extremely obvious,” says Marjorie. “Catherine and I have been talking about it.” She pauses and then adds, “We’re proud of you.”

Amy wants to respond that she is not a baby anything, and where does Catherine get off talking about Amy like _she_ ’s the child, but it occurs to her that technically Marjorie is the first person she’s told, and it could have gone _worse_. “…Thank you,” she says.

Marjorie nods. “Any time.”

\--

Three hours before her date, looking at the rejected clothing strewn across the bed in the hotel room she’s still staying in, Amy calls Dan.

“Dan Egan speaking,” he answers in his typically smug fashion. There’s an ambient level of noise around him, like he’s in a restaurant or a crowded room.

Amy rolls her eyes. “You know it’s me, asshole."

Dan doesn’t reply. She hears a rustling noise and him muttering something. “Dan?”

“Hold on,” he says. More rustling. Distant laughter.

Amy absentmindedly reorganizes the clothes on the bed.

The noise on the other end of the phone quiets. Dan mutters something unintelligible and then says, “Sorry about that. What’s up? Need an interview? The Meyer Fund added getting a monkey on the Moon to its list of causes?”

Amy considers chucking the phone and screaming into the hotel pillow. “No. Can you —“

“What is it, then?” interrupts Dan. “Teaching a robot to feel pain? I know you’ve added something.”

Amy sighs shortly. “Ending food scarcity. And that’s not why I’m calling.”

Dan lets out a surprised laugh, and Amy hears something else that sounds like a muffled voice.

Amy closes her eyes and brings a hand to her forehead. Pacing, she asks, “Can you just be a friend for five fucking minutes while I talk to you?”

When Dan speaks again, there’s not exactly concern in his voice, but the humor is gone. “I can certainly try. What’s going on?”

“Do you remember a month ago, when I was trying to be Hillary Clinton circa fucking 1998?”

“I don’t think any of us will ever be able to forget that footage.”

“You certainly played it enough times.”

“Amy,” Dan says slowly, “the American people —“

“Okay, shut up!” Amy takes a deep breath. “The point is, I’ve decided that instead, I’m going to be Hillary Clinton before she left Wellesley and quit eating pussy for every meal. I have a date in three hours. Now, I am asking you this question because you have success in spite of the fact that you have the personality of an evil henchman in a children’s movie. How do you make women want to sleep with you?”

It is a few seconds before Dan speaks again. When he does, it is in the slightly-frantic, toned-down whisper that should, by all accounts, draw more attention in D.C. than a yell. “Three hours? You’ve finally opened yourself up to the world of fucking women and it took you until all of three hours before your date to ask me for advice?”

This time, the other voice is loud enough that she can make out the words distinctly. “Amy’s fucking bi? Do you know how many threesomes —“

Amy rolls her eyes and taps her foot through the loud shuffling that follows.

“Sorry about that —“ begins Dan, several seconds later, using his stupid newscaster voice.

Amy interrupts him, says flatly, “You’re hanging out with Jonah right now, huh.”

“What? No,” says Dan, oddly cagey. “I’m —”

Jonah again raises his voice, so that Amy can picture him bending toward the phone or lunging across the table. “Oh, fuck you, Dan! Amy, do you own a —“

Amy calls, “Do not finish that sentence, Jonah!”

“Sorry,” Dan says again.

Amy can hear Jonah pouting. “I was giving _advice_.”

“It’s fine,” Amy says to Dan. “Tell Jonah I’m gay. If he wants a threesome he can find a straight couple on Tinder like everybody else.”

“I’ll relay the message.” After a pause, Dan says, “So you’re just going all the way, huh?”

The second the words leave her mouth, there’s a voice in her head telling her she shouldn’t have said it. But on impulse, she says, “What, you want advice?”

Luckily, Dan just chuckles in response. “I think you were asking me for that, actually. You got some pen and paper handy? Because there _will_ be a quiz.”

“Oh, fuck off,” replies Amy. “Don’t mock me. It’s not my fault men just hand you a note that says, ‘Can I cum on your tits check yes or no.’ I’ve never had to work for it before.” _I’ve never cared about it working before_ , her brain adds.

“Amy, with my assistance, you will be the lesbian Casanova your mother was always afraid you would grow up to be. Now listen up.”

The phone call ends with Amy laying down on the bed, nerves calmed, if only because three minutes into an explanation on negging she realized that she was already better with women than Dan Egan (or Jonah Ryan, though that went without saying) would ever be.

\--

The date isn’t great. She’s a political analyst from Queens, and halfway through dinner she and Amy get into a fight about interpreting polling data.

Amy rides the subway back to the hotel with emphatic plans for no second date and the start of a headache from the sound of a baby screaming nearby. Clutching the filthy pole, Amy screams internally, thinking about how much she hates living in New York and the job that forces her to do so. She thinks about how much she hates the stupid Meyer Fund and the woman that keeps word-vomiting new causes to the press and also men and also the concept of lesbianism itself.

The date itself isn’t great, but it does give Amy an idea.

\--

It’s a closed-door meeting. Amy gets a little thrill from the thought of it, how angry Selina would be if she knew what was happening inside her office space. She’s off yelling at Mike somewhere, and she has no idea that Amy is here, leaning down and spreading her hands over the polished desk saying, “I want to make you the first lesbian Governor in the history of the United States.”

Catherine tenses. Amy’s eyes catch the way Marjorie’s grip tightens on her hand, her shoulder. “I will not,” says Catherine slowly, “become my mother.”

Amy responds, “Catherine, if everyone in politics was as dysfunctional as your mother, there would be no America left. I know that it seems like no one in D.C. actually believes this, but with the right person in the right seat, politics is a chance to make a difference. And with your money, name recognition, far-left platform, and my skills as a campaign manager,” here she slaps the desk for emphasis, “we can make you that person so fast your head would spin.”

Catherine tilts her head. “But I thought voters hated me.”

“Voters don’t know you,” corrects Amy. “I’ll rebrand you, and after you campaign for a week, everyone will have forgotten that you were ever a modern dance major.”

Catherine opens her mouth to speak, and Amy says, “Think about how badly it would piss off your mother.”

Catherine closes her mouth. Then, she opens it again. “Still no. But I have another idea.”

\--

When Amy tells her, Selina looks around and says, "Who in this building is not a lesbian?"

"Well, me," answers Gary, laughing.

"No, I was including you," says Selina. She looks back at Amy. "As someone who's dated a lot of men, I get it. I mean, I don't..." she gestures with her hands and winces, " _get it_. But I get it."

Amy considers this for a moment. "Thank you, ma'am."

\--

Leaving the Meyer Fund is easy; leaving Selina is harder. One of the pros of coming out has been the surprisingly enlightening process of untangling the weird, twisted crush that was the sexual bedrock of her early 30s. Amy will always be the woman who woke up confused, half-remembering dreams about Selina’s mouth. She will also always be the woman who hugged Selina goodbye and meant it.

\--

The Catherine Meyer Foundation for Women in Government has operatives in local, state, and federal campaigns around the country and the lofty goal of 50% representation in Congress by the midterms in 2030. Amy Brookheimer runs it. She has a staff that respects her and Catherine bankrolling the endeavor far beyond what is appropriate. In 20 years, there will be few seats an endorsement from Amy Brookheimer can’t buy.

But tonight, Amy has a date with Candy Caruso. And tomorrow, she’s got an interview on Dan’s new CBS show and a meeting with a potential female Governor for Nevada.

She’s the woman behind the women. It’s the career she always dreamed of.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1) Nobody is allowed to comment and tell me I don't understand politics.
> 
> 2) If you enjoyed this, consider watching this fic's companion media, my AMV of Amy Brookheimer set to The Man by Taylor Swift: https://vimeo.com/385004820?activityReferer=1
> 
> 3) If you can't tell, I did not enjoy the direction of Veep in s6/s7. I wanted to give Amy an ending I actually liked. I had the idea of Amy running Catherine's campaign first, but I didn't want to ruin Catherine's arc in an attempt to fix Amy's. Hence the end, in which I envision Amy becoming a Jeff Kane-like figure.
> 
> 4) If you were scratching your head over the one line that implies Dan is gay, watch this space.


End file.
